“In a secular world, which is what most of us in Europe and North America live in, history takes on the role of showing us good and evil, virtues and vices. Religion no longer plays as important a part as it once did in setting moral standards and transmitting values. . . .History with a capital H is being called in to fill the void. It restores a sense not necessarily of a divine being but of something above and beyond human beings. It is our authority: it can vindicate us and judge us, and damn those who oppose us.”

Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History

Biography/Contacts

Biography

Margaret MacMillan is a Professor of History at the University of Toronto and emeritus Professor of International History and the former Warden of St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford. Her books include Women of the Raj (1988, 2007); Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2001) (Peacemakers in the UK) for which she was the first woman to win the Samuel Johnson Prize; Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World (Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao in the UK); The Uses and Abuses of History (2008); Extraordinary Canadians: Stephen Leacock (2009); The War that Ended Peace (2014). Her most recent book is History’s People (2015). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto, Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, University of Toronto, Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, St Hilda’s College and St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. Margaret is also a Trustee of the Central European University in Budapest and the Imperial War Museum and sits on the editorial boards of International History and First World War Studies.

She has honorary degrees from the University of King’s College, the Royal Military College, the University of Western Ontario, Ryerson University, Huron University College of the University of Western Ontario, the University of Calgary, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Bishop’s University and the University of Toronto. In 2006 Professor MacMillan was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2015 became a Companion. In 2018 she became a Companion of Honour (UK).